Wings of Fire: Darkness of the Light

Chapter 3

"Don't panic," said Asteroid.

Hah! Don't panic? How could I not?

It seemed like that was all she could do that day.

"I don't have a mooncrystal!" Infinity snapped back. "Father's going to be so disappointed. It was such a simple mission, and I managed to fail!"

Tears would be rolling down her face if her eyes weren't so dry.

They had just landed and were still standing on the main platform. The sun was low now. They were gone for almost all day. Next, they needed to head back to their father to report how the mission went and give him the items they were meant to retrieve.

"Will you just let me talk?" He said sternly. "There's no need to panic, look..." He held out his talons towards her. There was a mooncrystal in each talon. He had two.

Infinity stared at them, speechless. She grabbed one and examined it. It was real. But it wasn't the one she had before. This one had rougher edges and was slightly smaller.

"What? How? Why do you have two?" She finally busted out.

"Well," Asteroid started to say, using his guilty tone, "I grabbed two in the cave so I could keep one. I just wanted a souvenir from our first mission as space charters. But since you lost yours, it's better that I give it to you."

Infinity smiled and hugged Asteroid. She was so relived. Her life wasn't ruined after all.

"Um, nobody tells dad about this," he said, leaning in to hug her back.

"Right," she answered, standing up straight again. "Let's go."

Infinity's glow was now bright as can be. She didn't know what she would've done if Asteroid hadn't grabbed an extra crystal.

The SpaceWings headed back to the palace, but this time entered through a more common entrance. There were large columns on each side of the entrance with beautiful engravings of dragons spiraling around it.

These hallways were much wider, but still had the same blue flamed torches lined against the walls.

The walk seemed to go by instantly, giving her no time to prepare on what to say. They walked inside confidently, as if nothing wrong happened.

Orbit looked up from his maps and smiled at them. "Oh great, you two are back! How was it? Do you have the mooncrystals?"

"Oh, um, it was amazing! It couldn't have gone better," Astroid said, his voice cracking like it always did when he lied.

He was so bad a lying that it just made Infinity want to curl up into a ball in the corner.

"Yep! We have the mooncrystals. We did everything perfectly and it all went according to plan," she butted in quickly before Asteroid could say anything else.
She grabbed his mooncrystal and placed both of them in front of their father.

"I'm so happy for you two," Orbit said, taking the crystals and placing them on a shelf behind him.

"You two should head back home now," he said, dipping his claw in a bowl of ink. "I'll stay here so I can finish up these maps."

Then it hit her so suddenly. An explosion erupted in the town, outside the palace. A blinding flash, followed by a deep rumble, knocking off the two mooncrystals and other possessions their father had on his shelves. It almost knocked Infinity off her feet. Screams could be heard from both outside and inside the palace.

Curiosity took over and sent her dashing out the room and down the hall. This must be one of the explosions she had heard rumors about. Infinity just had to see who was causing this chaos. She could hear Asteroid calling out to her, "Infinity, wait!" But she was already making a turn towards the nearest exit.

As soon as she made it outside, she could smell smoke. She flew up high, to get a good view on what was happening. Down by the lower part of town was the fire. A shop was covered in flames, sending thick smoke spiraling into the air. Dragons were in panic, trying to put it out with the water from a nearby water well.

Just outside the town, two dragons were fighting. She dove down towards them, thinking that she could stop them from causing more chaos. As she grew closer, she saw that one of the dragons looked odd, but she couldn't quite tell how yet. Although, she could tell that one had a deep orange glow.

Infinity landed a few wing lengths away from the fight, but before she could do anything, the odd dragon slashed the orange dragon's chest with his claws. The victim fell to the ground, his wound bleeding onto the grass. He wasn't dead though. His glow was still orange, but was barely hanging on.

She could now clearly tell what was so odd about the dragon left standing. His glow was pure white, and his cold, icy blue eyes were staring right at her.